The Conservatives and child care: Giving Stephen the benefit of the doubt?

Not surprisingly, the anger is building over another apparent broken promise from Stephen Harper's Confabulation Party of Canada, as parents are wondering where the fuck all those child care spaces are that Captain Charisma promised them:

There's no federal help in sight for frazzled parents facing years on waiting lists for child care.

One year after the Conservatives won power on a platform touting 125,000 new spaces over five years, there isn't even a clear plan on how to create them. And there's uncertainty mixed with alarm across Canada over looming fee increases and program cuts since the Tories dropped the $5-billion Liberal plan to build a national early learning system. "They're really over a barrel," said Monica Lysack, executive director of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.

"They don't have a plan. They haven't created a space. Parents are being caught in the middle of this cut-and-run approach."

To which the CPoC might fairly be able to reply: I'm sorry ... didn't you read the fine print?

Yes, it does appear that Cons were fairly careful (at least in some situations) to point out that these new spaces weren't coming until this year. One can just Google on the combination of the phrases "child care spaces" and "starting in 2007" to read clarifications like, oh, this:

f the budget is passed, the Conservatives would also commit $250 million in annual tax credits starting in 2007 to fund a program to create 25,000 new child-care spaces.

and this:

The government will provide $250 million to address the problem starting in 2007.

and this:

Starting in 2007, the Childcare Spaces Initiative will help employers and communities create 125,000 new child care spaces over five years.

So, given that this qualifier was clearly out there for the last several months, whose fault is this? Did the general public just not pay close enough attention? Or did the CPoC selectively drop that qualifier when it suited their political needs?

More importantly, given that it's now 2007, when will we start to see the first of these spaces? Is there a schedule? Or are we simply supposed to assume that 25,000 spaces will magically appear sometime before midnight, Dec. 31?

Thoughts?

LET THE FINGER-POINTING BEGIN: Not surprisingly, the blissfully-obedient collective that is the Blogging Tories are, at the moment, uniformly mum on this topic, except for this post, whose commenters know how to deal with those whiny moms who actually, you know, believed the CPoC and were counting on those spaces:

Everybody repeat after me: SOCIAL PROGRAMS ARE A PROVINCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. Now, will the chldspaces advocates, accountability challenged premiers and lib-friendly reporters please direct your whining to your OWN provincial govt. If that province won't give you what you want, either vote that govt out of power, move, or STFU ! ...

Socialist tripe.
Look after your kids or don't have them, why the hell should I pay for thier childs care?
Parents are care givers.

Translation: "Vote for us and we'll give you child care! All right, now, piss off 'cuz it's not our problem."

I am so not surprised by this new development.